I hate to admit, van der leun, but you're one smart guy (even if you do overrate Dean--he's not even *that* worthy).

You make a good case. But hopefully the Deanies won't take your message to heart--it won't be as fun posting on sites like dailykos and eschaton if their bubble gets burst so soon.

Clear thinking coupled with articulate explication...

More! Keep up the good work!

There's sometimes a tendency among bloggers to be insular and blogocentric. The hope overshadows the reality. You're absolutely correct that they "start to perceive a luminosity around a candidate that is not visible to the vast unconnected, unwired, and unconcerned multitudes."
There's a distorted perspective.

I really believe bloggers should take regular self-imposed vacations from blogging and reading blogs to regain perspective.

".......when you're a blog, everything looks like a post." ----------->I love that :-)

I shouldn't bother responding, considering the brain-dead accusation that the left believes in "a world that would be at peace if only the United States would stop trying to protect itself." Dean's not a dove; he has said he would send more troops into Afghanistan and Iraq and supported the first Gulf War.

I'm not a Dean supporter (yet), but I'm impressed with his appearance on the covers of Time and Newsweek, which to my recollection are not weblogs. If Jimmy Carter could run an outsider campaign to the White House when the economy sucked and trust in government was reeling, I see no reason to smugly assume that Dean is incapable of riding the same populism today, considering the economy and the continued attrition in Bush's approval ratings.

Well, who said the Left couldn't have a dream.

You suggest that the important characteristic for presidential candidates in the U.S. is dollars raised. Give me a break - that's only if you are the party of the wealthy, for the wealthy!

Really? And which one of the two parties would that be?

Hmmn, let's see here..last two presidents to have a truely humble upbringing were Nixon & Clinton. Both are remembered almost exclusively for how they abused the power of their office. And Fishyone, might I remind you that it's the Donks who have the most millionares in Congress, not the Pubs. The Donks aren't going to go anywhere if they keep acting like its 1903 instead of 2003. The real world (in the US & other civilized areas, at least) isn't an Upton Sinclair novel, and it hasn't been for over 75 years.